Against the run of play, the Irish managed to break the deadlock, with nine minutes to play, with arguably their first real chance of the game following a swift break from the back.
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Neil offers up his thoughts on the side that Martin O’Neill selects, while Dale is quietly confident that Ireland will be on a plane to France next summer. The two teams met in 2012 in Dublin, prior to European Championship with Shane Long scoring the only goal.
The home side enjoyed plenty of early possession in the early stages without really causing any problems for the Ireland back four.
He collected the ball wide on the right after it had skidded off the head of defensive midfielder Edin Cocalic and cut inside defender Toni Sunjic before thumping a low drive past Asmir Begovic and into the bottom corner for his fourth senior worldwide goal.
He said: “We have talked about players here who haven’t been able to make it, but okay that’s the nature of it. That happens and I think we have to deal with people who are here and be ready for the challenge”.
“We know they’ve got a few players that can hurt us, but if we can keep a few players quiet on Monday and we up our game”, the 23-year-old said.
O’Neill had highlighted the importance of an away goal in the build up to this game, something that may have influenced Bosnia’s defensively minded line-up that had surprised the locals.
The absence of O’Shea means Ciaran Clarke, fresh from a clean sheet against Manchester City, will partner Richard Keogh in defence, while Darren Randolph is set to continue between the sticks with Given absence and Rob Elliott remaining at Newcastle to assess a slight injury.
Vranjes pulled the ball back across the box for the Bosnian record goalscorer Dzeko, who made no mistake with a tap-in from the centre of the six-yard box.
“I haven’t seen the goal. We’ll analyse the game and I’m one hundred percent sure that we will play much much better in Dublin”.
In his wildest dreams, Richie Towell could barely have imagined the season he has just had, with his goals helping to deliver the league and cup double for Dundalk, by far and away the best team in Ireland for the last couple of years. “Now we have got to get re-focussed and go into the game as if it’s 0-0 again”.
And along with that quality comes experience of these occasions, albeit the memories are not happy – Bosnia lost to Portugal in play-offs for the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012.
“Once it was down the other end I couldn’t see what was happening”, recalled Randolph.
“Never this bad with the fog or smoke or whatever it is”, he said.
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Ward’s fellow full-back Seamus Coleman added: “It was very hard”.
